LSAT Prep Lessons Learned from the Sixers’ Losing Record

This past Saturday night, the Philadelphia 76ers clobbered the Detroit Pistons by the score of 123-98. By beating the Pistons, the Sixers avoided the ignominy of breaking the record for the longest losing streak in NBA history. They can take a little comfort in the fact that they only tied the record for the longest losing streak at 26 games. Not that it’s ever a good thing to be tied with the just-lost-LeBron 2010-2011 Cavs.

The Sixers’ ineptitude is expected and not entirely unintentional. At 16-58, they’ve won more games by now than some predicted for the entire season, thanks in part to a surprising 3-0 start to the season that included a convincing win over the Miami Heat. Let’s just say things have gone downhill since then.

But that’s all part of the plan. No one in charge would ever come out and admit it directly, but all this losing is, well, kind of what the Sixers’ front office is trying to do. Before the season, the Sixers traded Jrue Holliday for an injured project in Nerlens Noel. They started the season spending $12 million less on player salaries than they’re required to spend, though they’ve now met the salary floor. The point is to clear cap space and stockpile assets for the future, and to maximize their chances of a top draft pick by being so awful and therefore losing so much.

And here’s where there’s a lesson to learn in the early stages of LSAT prep.

There’s never any reason to tank questions on the LSAT. But as you start to prepare, you’ll learn various strategies that will serve you well on LSAT test day but that might not pay off right away. For example, knowing how to diagram conditional logic is an important LSAT skill, but it takes a little while to learn how to do it well and efficiently. When you’re first learning to diagram, it’ll probably slow you down. The advantages won’t come right away, but once you get it together, diagramming will be an important tool.

So it goes for lots of things on the LSAT. To get really good at the LSAT in the long run, you have to slow things down and really pick them apart in the short term. It’ll pay off, even if it may not seem to help much right away. So if you think you’re going slowly at first, don’t worry about it. If your second LSAT practice exam score is a little lower than the first, that’s fine. What’s important is that you’re laying the groundwork for long-term success.